France is gifting a second, smaller Statue of Liberty to the United States to honor the friendship between the two nations.
According to CNN, the 10-foot-high, 450 kg black statue, looks more or less identical to the larger Statue of Liberty located on Liberty Island outside New York City.
In fact, it is supposedly an exact replica of the main Statue of Liberty, made using the original 1878 plaster model.
After it was sculpted in 2009, the so-called "Little Sister" has been installed in the National Museum of Arts and Crafts in Paris since 2011.
On June 19, the diminutive version of Lady Liberty will board a boat at the port city of Le Havre, and will then be shipped to New York, where it will stand on Ellis island between July 1 and July 5.
After this, the sculpture will be installed outside the French ambassador's residence in Washington D.C. for another ten years.
Commenting on the gesture per CNN, the general administrator of CNAM Olivier Faron stated:
"The statue symbolizes freedom and the light around all the world.
"We want to send a very simple message: Our friendship with the United States is very important, particularly at this moment. We have to conserve and defend our friendship."
The original Statue of Liberty was first proposed in 1865 by French historian Édouard de Laboulaye as a gift to the United States in the aftermath of the Civil War.
It took French sculptor Frédéric-Auguste Bartholdi a decade to complete the monument - finally finishing it in 1886.
Bartholdi's masterpiece makes a number of symbolic references to the ideals of freedom, liberty, and enlightenment values espoused by the two countries in the wake of the French and American revolutions.
For example, the seven spikes in the statue's crown represent the sun’s rays extending out around the world, while the book she holds is inscribed with the date of America’s independence.
Meanwhile, the broken chains around its feet represent the abolishment of slavery in the United States, and the subsequent emancipation of the slaves, while the woman herself is meant to be a representation of the Roman goddess Libertas.
